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well, I don't know what the "modern approach" is, but I know the way it was when I was a child and when my kids were children, and that approach was not o.k. Oddly enough, in both their generations and mine, it was the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" approach... meaning, if you went to a teacher, you got in trouble for "tattling," and if you stood up for yourself you got into trouble for fighting (even if the 'fighting' was just verbal).
My opinion: if you send your child off to school, it's the school's responsibility to keep him/her safe, and that includes safe from bullying. if it goes on in the neighborhood, the parents should deal with it.
while bullying between siblings is something neither my kids nor I ever experienced, I don't think parents should allow one kid to feel afraid of another, or one to overpower another.
I don't agree with the idea of a kid gaining "confidence" by fighting... he or she might, but what kind of confidence is it, and what kind of message does it give?
In an ideal world your logic makes sense, but in the world today, where schools are struggling resource wise, they may not always have the resources to deal with bullying. Alot of schools have a program in place, but if noone tattles, the teachers and adminstration can't be everywhere all the time, bullying is bound to happen. So what do you do if your child is repeatedly bullied and the school does nothing?
I don't agree with the idea of a kid gaining "confidence" by fighting... he or she might, but what kind of confidence is it, and what kind of message does it give?
My son was bullied a few years back. The bully had two older teenage siblings who babysat him after school, and my guess is he was not treated well by them. But he was used to socializing with teens, and was smart and conniving like a fox. He was very careful never to taunt my son in front of witnesses. My son is by no means passive, but he couldn't seem to figure out a way to defend himself. Thankfully he would talk to me about it. There wasn't much anyone could do as he never did anything in front of others. The mom was an enabler, always blaming the school and teachers for picking on her "sweet" boy. When my son was at his wits-end I told him if he felt cornered, and really didn't have any other options, to take his best shot, and I would be okay with it. He never had to do that though as after our chat he felt a lot more confidant, asserted himself more, and the bully backed-off. I am not usually a supporter of the eye-for-an-eye mentality, and don't think violence solves the problem, but honestly kids need to understand that they don't have to continue to just take it. The sad part is that spending as much time as I do at school, there are a lot of mean-girl moms, and their little apples don't fall far from the tree.
We have to ask ourselves, is it getting better? The answer is NO, it isn't. So let's look at why.
Parents today are so focussed on their children; every feeling, every nuance, every word, and have this unrelenting need to protect, that kids are growing up with no sense of self-reliance or self-preservation.
With mom right there to tell them they are the victim and the bully should be dealt with, kids learn from a very early age to not deal with ANYTHING, but to go tell mom or the teacher. With adults monitoring every breath kids take, analyzing it and telling them how to exhale it and how everyone else should react, it doesn't leave much for the kids to learn except to wait for an adult to tell them how to behave, what to think and what to say.
Why is bullying so much more of a problem than ever before? BECAUSE WE'RE WORKING ON THE WRONG END OF IT. This country has become so pitifully PC that kids don't stand a chance of ever growing up with any sense. Those who bully shouldn't, but they do anyway. Continually telling a child he or she is the victim solves nothing except convincing the child he or she is the victim. It doesn't stop the bullying and it doesn't teach the child how to deal with bullying.
Parents and teachers need to back off and allow kids to learn how to deal with each other. When those kids grow up, how will they know what to do without mom right there to tell them? When someone doesn't like them, they won't have mom telling them how wonderful they are and they don't need that nasty person anyway. That person may be a boss, or someone who it will be necessary to work with. Playing a victim won't help an adult who doesn't know anything about survival in the adult world.
There are always going to be bullys. Kids need to learn how to deal with them in an effective way instead of being taught they are victims and bullies are bad, bad people; the end. Knowing that is never the end. It's only the beginning.
The sad part is that spending as much time as I do at school, there are a lot of mean-girl moms, and their little apples don't fall far from the tree.
Isn't that the truth! There is even a book about this phenomenon, by the same woman who wrote the original book about "Mean Girls". And yeah, there are bullies here on CD, on almost every forum. It doesn't always stop when the bullies grow up.
The problem with all this fighting as I see it is that if we're trying to teach kids how to deal with bullies using violence then we're not giving them very useful tools with how to deal with it beyond the school yard.
There are all sorts of bullies one may encounter as an adult. Boss bullies, neighbor bullies - other parents - and you can't just go wacking them across the face with a stick, to get them off your back, much as you'd like to.
The last recourse for adults if they have someone who won't stop harassing them is to go to somebody that has authority over them, their boss, a mediator, the cops.
One day the bully you encounter may be the one you're married to, and just ask all the spouses in jail for assault how well the violence in self defense argument worked out for them.
I'm not saying never ever physically stand up for yourself. I'm saying there's got to be a better way to do it. If we make it just as socially unacceptable to bully (physically, psychologically, on the internet) as it is to go out without any pants on, maybe we'd see it diminish.
^^^^
This.
FR, I can tell you've actually been forced to cope with bullies -- because I've been there too and it takes people who have actually had to DEAL with the intricacies of bullying to really question all the stuff that goes on.
Physical bullies are often the easiest to deal with. It really does take some skin off your knuckles, but sometimes the direct confrontation is for the best, unless you end up losing BADLY -- which leads back to even more harsh bullying as it escalates. You have to win OR at least not lose badly for that to make any difference.
But this is bullies we're talking about; how often does it really end there?
As has already been pointed out, some of these kids are just downright treacherous. You beat them one-on-one, they get their toadies and lackeys in a group, wait for you.
Even if they back off the physical bullying, there are other arenas in which they ply their trade:
The worst of my childhood bullies pulled his physical tricks but when I offered resistance and he knew he couldn't actually take me in a direct confrontation he resorted to sneaking behind the scenes and ruining assignments for me, anything from messing up computer assignments back with we were all linked on the networked Commodore 64 all the way to actually removing my assignments from a teacher's stack of papers where they sat on her desk.
Try actually PROVING that kind of thing, imagine the frustrations, KNOWING you've done your work (in the days when PAPER AND INK was the medium, not reproducable thumb-drive data) and having it taken away from you this way -- and in a relatively small school we shared a LOT of classes and his pack was able to cause me a lot of problems.
It got so I was forced to turn in work directly to a teacher, STATE things like "Here, this is my work for [assignment X], you SEE me turning it in, you KNOW I've handed it to you."
I had to have the computer teacher come look at things on my terminal, being almost unable to save them back to the network terminal unscathed.
And all of that ISN'T how someone should have to live, you know? The bully flies low for a while, withdraws... time passes, you relax, let your guard down -- and bam, you're hit again.
Further, the thing people tend to gloss over, to simply FORGET, is that these are bullies; this is what they do, how they live. They THRIVE, they excel at flying under the radar, striking when authoritative eyes are elsewhere, while people who don't THINK this way are likely to strike back -- at precisely the wrong time.
I, for example, am FINE with words; but put me in a contest of insults with someone actually of half my intelligence BUT who insults regularly, it's a contest I'll likely do badly in because it's not how my mind works.
Same thing with bullying. It's what they DO, and that actually means something when it comes to a victim attempting to determine how to cope with it.
Facebook rumours and harassment, texting, social networking of all kinds, social settings, the school hallways -- the list of potential scenarios for victimhood goes on and on.
Sadly, and perhaps most UN-enlightenedly, in the end it still comes back to teaching your kids to NOT be victims, to be light on their toes and quick with their wits, and quite possibly to be as quick with their fists, because there is ONE thing which is true about bullies across the board:
They don't want to fight you, they only want to beat you up. Proving you're NOT worth the trouble is pretty much the only way out of it.
I plan to teach my son to develop loyal friendships with quality people to the best of his ability; to learn the difference between right and wrong; to be able to defend himself verbally, mentally, to avoid scenarios where self-defense might become necessary -- and if need be, to stomp a bully's guts out but to always leave that as a last resort. I'd rather he never have to raise a hand in self-defense, but if he must then I'd prefer it be the hand capable of some Heaven-on-Earth smiting.
Another thing to remember is that these are KIDS we're talking about, both bullies and victims. They don't have the mental or authoritative resources we possess, not yet. The answers aren't always as clear to them, they have to learn this stuff.
if it goes on in the neighborhood, the parents should deal with it.
while bullying between siblings is something neither my kids nor I ever experienced, I don't think parents should allow one kid to feel afraid of another, or one to overpower another.
I don't agree with the idea of a kid gaining "confidence" by fighting... he or she might, but what kind of confidence is it, and what kind of message does it give?
For sibling bullying and giving the kids some confidence to deal with bullying in the neighborhood, I highly recommend this book Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
My dad jumped out of a perfectly good airplane on D-Day. Meaning he was a paratooper. He didn't take crap from anybody and didn't raise his daughter (that would be me) to be a wimp.
The kid next door (age 6) was bullying me (also age 6). He was also exposing himself to me so he had all sorts of problems. I went home one day and complained to my dad that "Dennis" hit me. And called me names. And taunted me. And did all sorts of horrid things I've since decided to forget. Don't think I mentioned the exposing thing.
My dad: "Wait until he least expects it. Some afternoon when you two are playing and getting along, give "Dennis" a good swift kick in the shins. Hard! When he says, "Why'd you do that?" tell him that was for hitting and bullying you." (This was actually a retaliatory/pre-emptive strike. The other military kids will understand this theory.)
So I waited. And one lovely, sunny afternoon, with not a word of warning I gave that bully a good, hard kick in the butt. (I adjusted my target without notifying command headquarters.) A kick in the butt that sent him flying. "Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh! Why'd you do that?"
"That was for all the times you kicked me and hit me and bullied me. And if you keep bothering me you will NEVER KNOW when I will do it again. HARDER!."
"Dennis" left me alone after that. He also never exposed himself to me again.
My dad jumped out of a perfectly good airplane on D-Day. Meaning he was a paratooper. He didn't take crap from anybody and didn't raise his daughter (that would be me) to be a wimp.
The kid next door (age 6) was bullying me (also age 6). He was also exposing himself to me so he had all sorts of problems. I went home one day and complained to my dad that "Dennis" hit me. And called me names. And taunted me. And did all sorts of horrid things I've since decided to forget. Don't think I mentioned the exposing thing.
My dad: "Wait until he least expects it. Some afternoon when you two are playing and getting along, give "Dennis" a good swift kick in the shins. Hard! When he says, "Why'd you do that?" tell him that was for hitting and bullying you." (This was actually a retaliatory/pre-emptive strike. The other military kids will understand this theory.)
So I waited. And one lovely, sunny afternoon, with not a word of warning I gave that bully a good, hard kick in the butt. (I adjusted my target without notifying command headquarters.) A kick in the butt that sent him flying. "Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh! Why'd you do that?"
"That was for all the times you kicked me and hit me and bullied me. And if you keep bothering me you will NEVER KNOW when I will do it again. HARDER!."
"Dennis" left me alone after that. He also never exposed himself to me again.
Gimme a break. I went to private school from K-12. Bullying, drugs, etc..... were just as much a part of private school life. I love how people are foolish to think these things don't happen in that setting.
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- and you can't just go wacking them across the face with a stick, to get them off your back, much as you'd like to.
JMHO 
